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A wide-ranging collection of essays on the subject of history from a legendary historian 

The first English translation of Ecrits sur l’histoire—a collection of essays written over a twenty-year period following publication of Braudel’s masterwork, The Mediterranean—On History sets forth Fernand Braudel’s reflections on the intellectual framework of his historical studies. Braudel calls on the historian to penetrate beneath the surface of political events to uncover and measure the forces shaping collective existence. Cycles of production, wages and prices, grids of communication and trade, fluctuations of climate, demographic trends, popular beliefs—all of these phenomena are proper subjects, Braudel argues of the historian’s investigations. It is only through study of the longue durée, Braudel argues, that one can discern structure, the supports and obstacles, the limits man and his experience cannot escape.

On the Border of Belonging: Luisa Capetillo, Ofelia Rodríguez Acosta, and Evangelina Rodríguez Perozo is a philosophical-historiographical project that spearheads the construction of an intellectual tradition of women from the Hispanophone Caribbean at the turn of the 20th century. On the Border of Belonging engages Luisa Capetillo (Puerto Rico), Ofelia Rodríguez Acosta (Cuba), Evangelina Rodríguez Perozo (Dominican Republic) as interlocutors with the landfall of Western modernity revealing a tense intersection between a desire to belong to modernity while sitting on the margins of its possibilities. The vexed relationship with belonging creates a counter-archive of contradictions that reveals a vivid philosophical patchwork that spirals and repeats across the archipelago. In this crosscurrent of ideas, Luisa Capetillo defends the possibilities of a spiritual- anarchist political life; Ofelia Rodríguez Acosta challenges the norms of love and kinship; and Evangelina Rodríguez Perozo contests the standards of maternal and infant care. 

In the fall of 2015, a collection of faculty at liberal arts colleges began a conversation about the challenges we faced as instructors: Why were there so few course materials accessible to undergraduates and lay readers that reflected current scholarly debate? How can we convey the relevance of studying music history to current and future generations of students? And how might we represent and reflect the myriad, often conflicting perspectives, positions, and identities that make up both music’s history and the writers of history?

Here we offer one response to those questions. Open Access Musicology is a collection of essays, written in an accessible style and with a focus on modes of inquiry rather than content coverage. Our authors draw from their experience as scholars but also as teachers. They have been asked to describe why they became musicologists in the first place and how their individual paths led to the topics they explore and the questions they pose. Like most scholarly literature, the essays have all been reviewed by experts in the field. Unlike all scholarly literature, the essays have also been reviewed by students at a variety of institutions for clarity and relevance.

These essays are intended for undergraduates, graduate students, and interested readers without any particular expertise. They can be incorporated into courses on a range of topics as standalone readings or used to supplement textbooks. The topics introduce and explore a variety of subjects, practices, and methods but, above all, seek to stimulate classroom discussion on music history’s relevance to performers, listeners, and citizens.

Where Maya voices reclaim their history and reshape our understanding of the past.

Combining the methodologies of anthropology and history, Carey uses both oral interviews and meticulous archival research to construct a history of the last 130 years in Guatemala from the perspective of present-day Mayan people. His research took place over five years, including intensive language study, four summers of fieldwork, and a year-long residence in Comalapa, during which he conducted most of the 414 interviews. By casting a wide net for his interviews—from tiny hamlets to bustling Guatemala City—Carey gained insight into more than a single community or a single group of Maya.

The Maya-Kaqchikel record their history through oral tradition; thus, few written accounts exist. Comparing the Kaqchikel point of view to that of the western scholars and Ladinos who have written most of the history texts, Carey reveals the people and events important to the Maya, which have been virtually written out of the national history.

A motto of the Guatemalan organization Maya Decinio para el Pueblo Indigena (Maya Decade for the Indigenous People) is that people who do not know their past cannot build a future. By elucidating what the Kaqchikel think of their own past, Carey also illuminates the value of non-Western theoretical and methodological approaches that can be applied to the history of other peoples. Valuable to historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, or anyone interested in Mayan and Latin American studies, this book will inform as well as enchant.

Journalist, activist, popular historian, and public intellectual, Lerone Bennett Jr. left an indelible mark on twentieth-century American history and culture. Rooted in his role as senior editor of Ebony magazine, but stretching far beyond the boundaries of the Johnson Publishing headquarters in Chicago, Bennett’s work and activism positioned him as a prominent advocate for Black America and a scholar whose writing reached an unparalleled number of African American readers.

This critical biography—the first in-depth study of Bennett’s life—travels with him from his childhood experiences in Jim Crow Mississippi and his time at Morehouse College in Atlanta to his later participation in a dizzying range of Black intellectual and activist endeavors. Drawing extensively on Bennett’s previously inaccessible archival collections at Emory University and Chicago State, as well as interviews with close relatives, colleagues, and confidantes, Our Kind of Historian celebrates his enormous influence within and unique connection to African American communities across more than half a century of struggle.